Television programmes [2]

{{ Ive seen the first 4 episodes of the Watch, which was enough for me.

Now its an odd one in many ways. It is not an adaptation of any one book, but takes ideas and set ups and characters from many and blends them into its own new story.
In terms of plot its more or less a mix of the first Guards book and the much later Night Watch and bits and pieces from a variety of other stories combined into their own entriely invented material.

In terms of setting there is no mention of the Disc, certainly none of Great Atuin or the Elephants. But the general idea of Ankh-Morpork remains- headed by a Patrician, Lord Vetenari and with crime legalised through the various Guilds. There is still an Unseen University and its wizards.

As for the Watch, they too are a weird amalgamation of characters and bits of characters made into something new. So we do have Angua and she is still a werewolf, but she looks almost the exact opposite of her book description. We have the dwarf Cheery who is a sort of mix of book Cheery  and Igor in terms of their job; having Cheery's name and sort of personality, and Igors job on the team. But they are also like Carrot, a dwarf who is tall, only they claim that in the south you just get tall dwarves- which ruins the whole joke about Carrot being a 6ft dwarf if its not even unknown or unusual. But the oddest thing, and its exemplary of the whole show, is how they changed Cheery into a trans character.

I find it odd as in the book Pratchett has some fun with the Tolkien notion its hard to tell male from female dwarves apart. But he also uses it for social comment and Cheery is basically a feminist dwarf who self identifies as female- which is shocking in broader dwarf culture which has no pronouns for he/she. In other-words her character was already there to make several social points along the way about the male/female power dynamic and how different societies react to the breaching of long accepted social norms. So why the need to change it to a different social point I am not sure.

Similar for the Patrician, who is now a woman but whom everyone still refers to as Lord Vetenari. And its not like she is bad in the role, its fine, its just why do it? Its not like Pratchett's work isn't full of social comment, its what Discworld does.

Then we have Lady Sybil who is now black and about 20 years younger. Its not that I have an issue with her being black, had she been written as such, but she wasn't so again why do it? She is supposed to be a member of the aristocracy, one of the oldest families in the city and as Discworld is a reflection of our world based on the old English aristocracy, n Ankh-Morpork an amalgamation of old London and New York. Her being white therefore is a choice made to comment on that real world aristocracy, overwhelmingly white as it was and still is. So by making her black they actually lose part of the comment on that class that was there in the original.
And why make her so much younger and more physically attractive and an action hero? That seems a step back from the rounded mature female character Pratchett gave us.

And these sort of changes for the sake of being seeing to be on the right bandwagon are everywhere- Carter, now black, Wonse is now a woman as is Doctor Cruces and Throat the gang leader.
And then we have the main character Vimes. Now this is an interesting one, the actor who plays him does a great job playing the character he has in the script. He has a lot of charisma on screen and really throws himself into the role. But to enjoy his performance you have to disregard just about everything about book Vimes, as the characters share barely any similarities.

There is entertainment to be had here- the basic setting of Guilds and legalised crime and wizards still works great as a setting that's interesting and dynamic. Some of the performances are likeable and some of the effects are good and the set pieces fun. But its bending over backwards to be seen to be progressive television at the expense of characters and depth of character. In ignoring the actual social causes characters were created to illustrate in favour of imposing their own social issues onto their created characters they do a poorer job. Pratchett was really good at it, its why his books work so well, they are not and its one of the many reasons this doesn't work well.

Each episodes opens with the quote from the books about the Discworld being a world and mirror of worlds. In the books it closely mirrors our world. This is like seeing into yet another set of second-hand dimensions, where there is a place that is a mirror of the Discworld. As different from actual Discworld as Discworld is from us, yet also similar. I suspect that's why that quote was there, and if you can put everything you know of the books aside and view it as that, another version of the Discworld unrelated to the books there is some enjoyment to be had out of it.
But as an adaptation of Pratchetts work its not even close, it cant really be called adaptation. Its more like stealing someone else's ideas then just rewriting them into your own fiction. }}

Binge watched the 2nd series of War of the Worlds.
Quite good, but they didn't have subtitles for the French speaking parts so missed out on some important bits.

Looking forward to Foundation. Looks good.

Since they are keeping the themes (though not the style) of the original, I'm hoping to forget the book while watching it. With Asimov it's the ideas that matter. Though from the reviews it seems he actually created some better characters than the series has.

Watched the first 3 episodes of Foundation. Hopefully it gets better. Nothing to write home about so far, but early doors. Pretty slow going.

If it's not good at the beginning I have doubts it will improve. It's a long trek through the book series before the basic format changes.

Squid Game's.
Interesting show. Pretty average until the games started. You lose you die. Usually with a bullet to the head. Violent with lots of blood. Watched the first 6 episodes on the trot. Last 2 tonight.

Mine was dubbed didn t have subtitles.

subtitles are better. You get the original performance.

I saw a bit of that, it was just 5 minutes of exploding heads and weird dolls.

Every time the doll turned round you had to stay still. If the giant doll seen you move, your dead.

Watch the 4th episode of Foundation yesterday. I can't remember a thing about it. Don't think there was any action in it, just talk.

That's actually a characteristic of the books: most of the action happens offstage, and is discussed later. But I'd think for a visual medium they'd fill it all in.

There is nothing so boring as waiting for the endless exposition to finish and the exploding heads to begin.

You must have loved John Wick 3 Figi. What was it? 92 headshots in that film

oh flipping heck!, that was pop, pop, pop, pop, every 5 seconds. I do love John Wick.

I guess I have to queue up parts 2 and 3. I did like the first one.

The 3rd one was just like a computer game. wasn't too impressed.

Looking good.

There was a blonde girl who was some kind of princess. The one they have in this trailer doesn't look like the same one. Did they drop that story, or change the actress?

Couldn't watch more than a few minutes of this, it was making me so crabbit. Is anything left of the original book? The book needed padding out and much better writing, admittedly, but I feel the themes are being obscured by all the extra dross they're throwing in there - and it doesn't feel like good dross. My interest in watching this is waning rapidly.

Watched episode 7 about an hour ago. It's not getting any better. Final episode tonight (episode 10) probably finishe watching the series, but if they don't make a second no big loss.

The wheel of Time starts tonight, anyone watching it?

That picture always reminds me of Arwen being chased by that black riders.

I don't have Amazon prime